What made Muhammed Ali The Greatest?

Great Debates
1

I have question that I have wanted to get answered for a longtime but never found enough info to get answered. I just want to know what made Ali the greatest and why him was it something that happened in his childhood or did he come up with a way to fight or was it just that everyone else sucked badly at that time. And is he has good as we are led to believe, if Ali in his prime fought Lennox Lewis (for say) today would Ali win or would lewis, if lewis then please explain why. I don’t feel that this is a general question so that’s why I posted it here.

/ sincerely one that wants to know or get an idea badly

2

Ali was athletic in a way that was uncommon for heavyweights.

Athletic in his ability to move around the ring such that he danced. And, while moving, he had an uncanny ability to land jab after jab with great accuracy. This ability was his defense as well. A HUGE advantage. HUGE.

How he got this ability? Well, much of it was “talent”, in the sense that he was born with the figure and the speed, but it was magnified by his personality…his flare…which just accentuated his physical ability to move gracefully, jab accurately, shuffle around the ring, and even rope-a-dope…which was the ultimate exageration of ALi’s new smooht heavyweight style versus the old sluggish heavyweight.

Ali could take a punch as well. His ability to take a punch and absorb the punch helped him even when he had to brawl.

It’s hard for me to admit because I denied it so long, but he sure looks like the greatest boxer ever when he was at his greatest. I haven’t seen a fighter that could take him when he was at his best. Any fighter at their best versus Ali at his best and you have to give Ali the nod.

Now, Mike Tyson at HIS best versus Ali when Ali was making his come back after the draft related ban? Tyson would probably do as well as Frasier did.

But Ali’s best could dismantle ANY boxers best. What he did to Frasier and Foreman is all you need to know about. When he beat Foreman, he beat a guy that was THE wrecking ball…a guy who knocked Ken Norton OFF THE GROUND. Foreman was a wrecking ball beyond what Tyson ever was. Ali humiliated him in FOREMAN’S supreme PRIME …and Foreman left boxing a broken man.

3

because he told us he was, and everyone believed him.

4

In addition to his superb boxing skills, Ali was a superb showman. He was handsome, funny, clever and charismatic. An Ali fight was an EVENT in a way that the overhyped matches of today fail to live up to.

Considering that the champions that preceeded Ali ranged from colorless (Ingmar Johannsen, Floyd Paterson) to outright thugs (Sonny Liston) Ali was an original.

Combine that with his previously noted boxing skills (I never saw a fighter take the punishment Ali did in some fights, and still come back to win) and every Ali fight became unforgettable.

It’s rather like Hank Aaron vs. Willie Mays in baseball. Both supremely talented, both among the best of all time, but somehow, watching Willie Mays play was somehow more exciting, even though Aaron may have been the better player.

5

Um, 'cuz he floated like a butterfly?

6

Well, you can read Malcom X and see what Malcom had to say about it. according to Malcom, he took an unsure Ali ahead of the Sonny Liston fight, built up his confidence and the rest was history. Likewise Hunter S Thompson in the Great Shark Hunt had a couple of pieces on Ali that are really informative, including personal stories.

The only one of his generation that Ali didn’t fight was the Cuban amature Stefano Stefanos (sorry, I half remember the name and can’t spell Spanish).

7

What made Ali great wasn’t just his fantastic skills, but he also had great competition.

Liston was a machine before Ali came along, destroying all other competition. He even knocked out the reigning champ, Floyd Patterson in the first round to win the title, and again in the 1st defending it. He quit against Ali, and was KO’ed in the first round on the rematch.

Ali lost 3 years of his career due to his Vietnam troubles, and, once he was reinstated, fought Joe Frazer for the title, losing in 15 grueling rounds. His 3 fights with Joe were legendary, as they were both very skilled and determined fighters. Ali won the last two of those matchups.

There was also George Foreman, who make his freekin career knocking out guys in 2 or 3 rounds. Foreman gave Joe Frazer an unholy beating while winning the title with a 2nd round knockout. He also defended his title by knocking out Ken Norton in 2 rounds. Ali knocked him out in the 8th, it was like watching a tree fall, he fell so hard. Ali wore him out with the rope a dope, Foreman threw so many punches, he couldn’t stand up anymore.

There were a number of boxers in the 60’s & 70’s that are considered very skilled, and Ali was the best of the lot. There is no other boxer we can really say that about.

Honestly, I find it difficult to watch today’s heavyweights because the skill level seems so poor. We may have a heavyweight champ, but he hasn’t proven himself against great competition. Larry Holmes had that problem, he held the title for about 7 years straight, but never had a good opponent to show off his skills with, just a bunch of stiffs.

8

My favorite Ali story:

Stewardess: Please fasten your seatbelt, Mr. Ali.
Ali: Superman don’t need no seatbelt.
Stewardess: Superman don’t need no airplane, either.

9

Ali could walk the walk and talk the talk. He had a big mouth but backed up everything he said.

If you ever studied his fights, you notice he never had any short ones. The man could duck and cover better than any boxer in history. He would taunt his opponents then go in to his Ropeadope[sup]tm[/sup]. In which his opponent would punch himself out. Ali would absorb the blows, mostly on his arms.

He would have punching power left. The rest would be fairly easy.

10

Liston rematch.

11

ChinaGuy, you’re probably thinking of Teofilo Stevenson of Cuba, who won 2 or 3 Olympic gold medals. There’s no way to know how he’d have done against Ali, because he never had to fight more than 3 rounds or without headgear. I’d have to go with Ali under pro rules, and probably under amateur ones as well (he won a gold too, don’t forget).

Smoker, if you’re really interested in understanding Ali’s charisma, which made him the most widely famous person in the world at one point according to one poll I’ve seen, there is no better way than to watch “When We Were Kings”. That’s on cable periodically, and is in your local video store. It’s a documentary of the Ali-Foreman fight in Kinshasa - or rather of the buildup to it. It shows in more detail than any post here, in both film clips and interviews, how important Ali was to so many people as both a person and a symbol.

It wasn’t just his extraordinary personal magnetism, it’s that he became (or made his public persona, anyway) a completely proud, utterly self-confident, boastful, gregarious, intelligent, totally fearless black man in a time when that meant a great deal symbolically, not only in the US but worldwide. If he’d been the same fighter but as colorless and, well, probably stupid as most other fighters, he’d have been just another name on the long list of champs. But as a celebrity and symbol, as well as an athlete, I think “The Greatest” is a pretty good name.

There may be room to speculate on the draft board’s decision to take him instead of some other local lout to fill their quota. Perhaps there was a quiet motivation to teach the uppity young Negro his manners? OK, flame me.

If only Ali hadn’t fought Larry Holmes and Leon Spinks after his reflexes were gone, he might not be punch-drunk today. Yes, I know he has Parkinson’s, but other people with it can still think and speak clearly too. One of the most pitiable sights today is seeing him stagger around quietly while thinking of the person he might have been today without brain damage.

12

Yeah, make that “no short fights where the opponent was trying not trying to earn an Academy Award.”

13

I would say “he told us he was and he backed it up, therefore everyone believed him.”

He pretty much kicked everyone’s ass that was around, including the “unbeatable” Sonny Liston, who was the Mike Tyson of his day.

14

Muhammed Ali was better than Mike Tyson because Tyson has the same name as a fried chicken company which earned a reputation for treating its employees about as well as Mike Tyson treated his women.

Not, to mention, it was a chicken company. Buck buck buck-awk!

15

It’s obviously because he was black. Black people are naturally better athletes than whites or hispanics.

16

While Ali’s speed, grace, and agility are legend, as well they might be, among heavyweights, there is more to it than that. Lots of light heavies try to make the jump to the big ring. And almost all of them get beaten to a pulp in their first few fights. Fast is not enough. A Champion caliber heavyweight will land punches on you, and you have to land punches on him. Those punches had better count, because his will.

You and I can punch someone, and if we connect, they might get a few seconds of “stars”. If Sonny Liston hit you it was over. Heavyweights hit hard. Muhammed Ali hit hard. He was fast, he was agile, but he rocked your world when he put it together and landed one. He kept you moving more than you wanted, kept you swinging more than you were able, took your shots when he had to, and when the combination of your movement, his position, and the right leverage came by, . . . WHAM. The so-called phantom punch. He had the highly developed skill of putting all his weight, and energy perfectly behind on of those many jabs, and turning it into a KO punch.

Oh, yeah, and on the matter of: “He told us he was the greatest, and we believed him.” Yep. Or rather every fighter he faced believed him. In every confrontation between two opponents, a single moment comes, and one becomes the victor, the other becomes the loser. They see it in themselves, and in the other. Muhammed Ali saw the winner in himself. So did a lot of other people.

Tris

“Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship.” ~ Zeuxis ~ (400 BC)

17

Perhaps you mean the greatest heavyweight? Myself, I have nothing to offer on this matter, but my father-in-law, who took the Far East title for the US armed services in his weight class a half-century ago and has followed these things since then would insist you consider Sugar Ray Robinson.

18

For me, Muhammed Ali is The Greatest for reasons involving both his boxing ability and his committment to his ideals. In the ring, he could be a clown, a supreme entertainer, and an unsurmountable force all-in-one. In his prime, he was not only the best boxer, he was one of the best entertainers of his time. Outside the ring, he was highly committed to his beliefs. He donated much of his time and money to the Nation of Islam. He stuck by his pacifist beliefs, in spite of the fact that this cost him his heavyweight title, kept him out of boxing during his prime, and posed the real threat of prison. He told the media, at the time he announced his refusal to respond to his draft notice, “This is one nigger you ain’t gonna get, do you hear that white man, this is one nigger you ain’t gonna get”. The courage to make a statement such as this, to refuse to be a submissive oreole, made him an insiration to many of America’s disenfranchised, downtrodden minorities. Like Malcolm X, Ali provided African Americans with the image of an advocate for their cause who would never let them down.

19

One has to remember that he was pretty much hated when he first took the title, bragging beforehand that he would take Sonny Liston.

That might be courage born out of brash youth, but his personal belief that the way the draft worked was discriminatory, and that he was being used merely as entertainment for white America, and that he would not be accepted equally, these are things that gave him a dimension outside of boxing.

When he made his stand against the draft he was not fully aware of the issues but it just felt wrong to him, and he got loads of abuse and approbrium for it by the whole of establishment America.

This was before the civil rights movement had got going so he really took all the pressure by himself, Malcolm X was not there to support him, nor was Martin Luther King, and many other Black Americans who had been drafted disliked him.
There he was, a young man only , what? 24 ?, alone with his principles and the American power brokers against him, he refused any deals to keep out of the combat zone, totally uncompromising.

He got immense flak from political America who saw his refusal to enlist as a worrying role model for all the other cannon fodder they intended to send to Vietnam.

In the end he took back his title from those unworthies who had stolen it from him in courtrooms instead of the ring, and he was always good for a quote,

“I got nothing against no Viet Cong. No Vietnamese ever called me a nigger.”

Summed up the racism in the US of the 60’s, why would he want to fight for a country that viewed him as a second class citizen.

All this from the sort of person who was usually regarded as being maybe a great athlete but lacking in the intelligence department, this was the stereotype the public had of the heavyweight boxer especially black ones, Ali shattered all these assumptions.

20

Malcolm X was very willing to support Ali; it was Ali who spurned Malcolm X. Ali became a member of the Nation of Islam, led by Elijah Muhammad. Elijah Muhammad grew wary and paranoid of the independence and popularity of Malxolm X, who had been one of his most successful leaders in the Nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad eventually spurned Malcolm X, ultimately ordering members of the Nation of Islam to assasinate Malxolm X. Ali, responding to the edicts of Elijah Muhammad, spurned Malcolm X.